How to retrieve files from a drive needed to be re-formatted?

How to retrieve files from a drive needed to be re-formatted?

I have a portable drive that has some files in it. Somehow all of a sudden the files in there are not visible or retrievable. Connecting it to a computer USB port, I can only see a message saying the drive needs to be formatted.

If I follow the prompt to format it, I can imagine I would lose all the files in there. Is there any way I can go around it? I wonder!

Portable USB drive...If you're being asked to reformat it...then it means Windows is not able to read it's original formatting..Was it formatted as NTFS or FAT32? Did you use it on a Windows computer or MAC? When did it last work, what changed since? ie: Cables, USB Ports, New Drivers etc...

There is a way to access raw data but it requires certain tools. I recommend looking around the Internet for a CD/Tool called "Hirens"...or an "ERD" CD...these are great and valuable IT tools used on a daily basis.

Is that the drive was disconnected without being dismounted. This can be OK 99 times out of 100 but you are eventually going to hit that 1 in a 100 time that the partition Tables go south.

What to do here all depends on just how "IMPORTANT" the data on the drive is. If it's "IMPORTANT" stop using the drive IMMEDIATELY and pack it up and send it to a Data Recovery Specialist Now.

However if it would just be Nice to recover the data and you can afford to loose it all there are several things you can try but you need to remember that every time you unsuccessfully do something it's just that much harder to recover anything at all and if you then send it to a Professional Data Recovery House you will have drastically increased the costs as well as reducing the chance of getting a 100% recovery.

If you just disconnected the drive without using the Safely Remove Option you can go the Run Command and enter chkdsk /r for the Drive letter that the External Drive should be and hope that Windows can repair the Partition Tables. It may or may not work but what the **** it costs nothing and it just might work.

The reason you have been asked about the Partition Type is because it depends on what Software to Attack the Drive with.

Currently there are 2 type of Data Recovery Software the first type recovers Files from a HDD the second Type Rebuilds the File Structure on that HDD. To use the second type you don't need an active readable partition.

Assuming you haven't formated it yet, try connecting the drive on a different USB port or on different computers. It happens very often that the lower than needed voltage of the USB ports makes Windows unable to read the file system of the removable hard drives.Try also a USB cable with double connector, that should fix the issue if the file system in the drive is still intact.

the two A connectors in the cable in the link I posted will sufficent power the portable hard drive, the other end type might be different for your drive, if not type B micro USB, you can buy these cables with an A connector on the other end as well... just do a search for it. Hope this helps.

and just one more thing, if the doublepowered UCB cable doesn't fix reading your files in your portable hard drive, then your drive file system is really damaged, so follow the data recovery procedures as per OH Smeg's suggestions.

It has 2 USB Plugs which plug into 2 different USB Sockets on the Computer to give the correct Amperage to the External Drive.

Each USB Port by Design is supposed to supply 5 V DC at 500 Milliamperes. That is the Apple design but with the move of USB to the PC some makers think that they know better and have reduced that 500 Milliamperes. Granted this mostly happens with NB's and is claimed to increase Battery Life by their maker but it's a Short Cut which hurts the system and really shouldn't be taken. It also occasionally happens on Desktops where that USB Socket is in a Fly Lead so read that as Front USB Sockets and the like.

If you carefully look at a Y Cable you'll see that the Middle Connector has a standard Cable but the Cable to the second USB Plug is thinner than the other cable. This is because the second USB Plug only supplies the Current to drive the external drive so it has fewer wires in that part of the lead. There are no Data Wires just Power Wires.

You can plug one of these cables into 2 Different USB Sockets on a computer or into 2 different USB Sockets on a Powered USB Hub. If you do not use a Powered USB Hub you are not getting the full benefit of the Y Cable as there will not be enough Amperage available at the Hub.

I applaude all those who replied with information on how to recover data. Kudos to you all for sharing your experience. However, this "Y- Cable" issue is another story. Per the USB specs (USB Power Delivery Specification Revision 1.0 Version 1.1 dated 31 Octobber 2012 available @ www.USB.org), section 2.3 states in part <i>"There is only <b><u>one</u></b> Source Port and <b><u>one</u></b> Sink Port in each PD connection between Port Partners."</i> The purpose of this statement is so the Source port can advertise its' capabilities to the Sink port and the 2 ports can properly negotiate all necessary power issues (including "low-power" devices).By using the Y-Cable applying 2 Source ports, you <i>may</i> temporarily get around a problem <b>IF</b> the issue is insufficient power. However, you have also just told all the non-electrician techie-wanna-be's how to potentially damage otherwise perfectly good equipment.In future, I suggest that <b>IF</b> you give out this kind of information, please also include any & all necessary caveats. In my 30+ years experience, I have found that only telling part of the story frequently is worse than not helping at all.

My computer speed has been greatly compromised after I having been getting the message High Disk usage from the Norton Antivirus. I have run basically all the maintenance procedures available all the informations obtained is that everything is working okay but my computer continuously freezes and becomes unresponsive most of the time. It is really a nightmare for me and since i not have much knowledge on these troubleshooting issues I am really stranded. Window experience index has degraded from 5.9 to 2.9 but when I run it using HP troubleshooting tools the window experience is always 5.9. I do know that with microsoft troubleshooting tools the information is correct since my laptop has slowed down tremendous even if I had only use 388GB free of 444GB for local disc(C:). How do I solve this problem since I have already tried to restore it the date that it was working properly but this turned out to be a useless exercise.

I had the similar situation. The device was used on a MAC and it got unusable on a PC. What I did was that I formatted it and then used the RecovrMyfiles program to recover the data. I was able to recover every thing from tha USB device.

Probably - have you tried Disk Management? In W7 (admin) right click My Computer, select Manage, then Storage, Disk Management and you will probably see your drive as an item in the list. Volume will be blank, but check in the Capacity column, If there, select the drive, right click the blank Volume, and select Change Drive letter, then choose accordingly. It should then appear as normal. I've got a drive that shows this behaviour every time I retrieve it from storage!Hope this works for you (a no cost solution!).Ken

I have used Active@ UNDELETE and Active@ File Recovery with very good results in the past, give it a try... you can download a Demo for both and see if it reads your drive first. For more: http://www.file-recovery.net/products.htm

Portable USB drive...If you're being asked to reformat it...then it means Windows is not able to read it's original formatting..Was it formatted as NTFS or FAT32? Did you use it on a Windows computer or MAC? When did it last work, what changed since? ie: Cables, USB Ports, New Drivers etc...

There is a way to access raw data but it requires certain tools. I recommend looking around the Internet for a CD/Tool called "Hirens"...or an "ERD" CD...these are great and valuable IT tools used on a daily basis.

Is that the drive was disconnected without being dismounted. This can be OK 99 times out of 100 but you are eventually going to hit that 1 in a 100 time that the partition Tables go south.

What to do here all depends on just how "IMPORTANT" the data on the drive is. If it's "IMPORTANT" stop using the drive IMMEDIATELY and pack it up and send it to a Data Recovery Specialist Now.

However if it would just be Nice to recover the data and you can afford to loose it all there are several things you can try but you need to remember that every time you unsuccessfully do something it's just that much harder to recover anything at all and if you then send it to a Professional Data Recovery House you will have drastically increased the costs as well as reducing the chance of getting a 100% recovery.

If you just disconnected the drive without using the Safely Remove Option you can go the Run Command and enter chkdsk /r for the Drive letter that the External Drive should be and hope that Windows can repair the Partition Tables. It may or may not work but what the **** it costs nothing and it just might work.

The reason you have been asked about the Partition Type is because it depends on what Software to Attack the Drive with.

Currently there are 2 type of Data Recovery Software the first type recovers Files from a HDD the second Type Rebuilds the File Structure on that HDD. To use the second type you don't need an active readable partition.

Assuming you haven't formated it yet, try connecting the drive on a different USB port or on different computers. It happens very often that the lower than needed voltage of the USB ports makes Windows unable to read the file system of the removable hard drives.Try also a USB cable with double connector, that should fix the issue if the file system in the drive is still intact.

the two A connectors in the cable in the link I posted will sufficent power the portable hard drive, the other end type might be different for your drive, if not type B micro USB, you can buy these cables with an A connector on the other end as well... just do a search for it. Hope this helps.

and just one more thing, if the doublepowered UCB cable doesn't fix reading your files in your portable hard drive, then your drive file system is really damaged, so follow the data recovery procedures as per OH Smeg's suggestions.

It has 2 USB Plugs which plug into 2 different USB Sockets on the Computer to give the correct Amperage to the External Drive.

Each USB Port by Design is supposed to supply 5 V DC at 500 Milliamperes. That is the Apple design but with the move of USB to the PC some makers think that they know better and have reduced that 500 Milliamperes. Granted this mostly happens with NB's and is claimed to increase Battery Life by their maker but it's a Short Cut which hurts the system and really shouldn't be taken. It also occasionally happens on Desktops where that USB Socket is in a Fly Lead so read that as Front USB Sockets and the like.

If you carefully look at a Y Cable you'll see that the Middle Connector has a standard Cable but the Cable to the second USB Plug is thinner than the other cable. This is because the second USB Plug only supplies the Current to drive the external drive so it has fewer wires in that part of the lead. There are no Data Wires just Power Wires.

You can plug one of these cables into 2 Different USB Sockets on a computer or into 2 different USB Sockets on a Powered USB Hub. If you do not use a Powered USB Hub you are not getting the full benefit of the Y Cable as there will not be enough Amperage available at the Hub.

I applaude all those who replied with information on how to recover data. Kudos to you all for sharing your experience. However, this "Y- Cable" issue is another story. Per the USB specs (USB Power Delivery Specification Revision 1.0 Version 1.1 dated 31 Octobber 2012 available @ www.USB.org), section 2.3 states in part <i>"There is only <b><u>one</u></b> Source Port and <b><u>one</u></b> Sink Port in each PD connection between Port Partners."</i> The purpose of this statement is so the Source port can advertise its' capabilities to the Sink port and the 2 ports can properly negotiate all necessary power issues (including "low-power" devices).By using the Y-Cable applying 2 Source ports, you <i>may</i> temporarily get around a problem <b>IF</b> the issue is insufficient power. However, you have also just told all the non-electrician techie-wanna-be's how to potentially damage otherwise perfectly good equipment.In future, I suggest that <b>IF</b> you give out this kind of information, please also include any & all necessary caveats. In my 30+ years experience, I have found that only telling part of the story frequently is worse than not helping at all.

My computer speed has been greatly compromised after I having been getting the message High Disk usage from the Norton Antivirus. I have run basically all the maintenance procedures available all the informations obtained is that everything is working okay but my computer continuously freezes and becomes unresponsive most of the time. It is really a nightmare for me and since i not have much knowledge on these troubleshooting issues I am really stranded. Window experience index has degraded from 5.9 to 2.9 but when I run it using HP troubleshooting tools the window experience is always 5.9. I do know that with microsoft troubleshooting tools the information is correct since my laptop has slowed down tremendous even if I had only use 388GB free of 444GB for local disc(C:). How do I solve this problem since I have already tried to restore it the date that it was working properly but this turned out to be a useless exercise.

I had the similar situation. The device was used on a MAC and it got unusable on a PC. What I did was that I formatted it and then used the RecovrMyfiles program to recover the data. I was able to recover every thing from tha USB device.

Probably - have you tried Disk Management? In W7 (admin) right click My Computer, select Manage, then Storage, Disk Management and you will probably see your drive as an item in the list. Volume will be blank, but check in the Capacity column, If there, select the drive, right click the blank Volume, and select Change Drive letter, then choose accordingly. It should then appear as normal. I've got a drive that shows this behaviour every time I retrieve it from storage!Hope this works for you (a no cost solution!).Ken

I have used Active@ UNDELETE and Active@ File Recovery with very good results in the past, give it a try... you can download a Demo for both and see if it reads your drive first. For more: http://www.file-recovery.net/products.htm